An investigation of the ways history does and doesn’t shape us.
A man reckons with 20th-century tragedies.
What does a life reveal when explored from different angles? This sprawling book begins in 1995 at an informal gathering of artists and academics in a Brooklyn brownstone. They’re discussing the ongoing civil war in Yugoslavia, and one of the attendees, a man from Sarajevo, says he’s going back next week. Robert Carpentier, another guest, asks why he’s returning to a place where people are being killed every day. The next step the novel takes is to jump back several decades and adopt a very different register. Here we meet a boy who’s studying for his First Communion—presumably the younger Carpentier, though the section that follows mostly avoids using names. He lives in the Tropical Republic, a country run by a politician known here as The Mortician. (Think Haiti under the rule of François Duvalier.) The political situation forces the boy’s parents to leave the country, with the rest of the family eventually following. Once they’re settled in New York City, the novel skips ahead to Carpentier in the 1970s, when he’s studying art history in Europe—mainly the paintings of Jean Siméon Chardin. After some time in Europe, he returns to the U.S., where he finds a job and embarks on a series of relationships before marrying. Civil war in the Balkans isn’t the only crisis referenced here; Carpentier and his wife also watch as friends die from AIDS. Eventually the novel returns to the Brooklyn apartment where it began, and we see how the Sarajevo man caused tensions in Carpentier’s marriage. It’s a stylistically bold look at one man weaving in and out of history, and the subtle effects on his psyche.
An investigation of the ways history does and doesn’t shape us.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781954276369
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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